Survey: Americans Growing More Cautious on Housing

Americans’ attitudes about owning a home dipped slightly during the third quarter, according to a Fannie Mae survey.

Some 68% of those surveyed think it’s a good time to buy a home, down two percentage points from June, while the number of Americans who think it’s a bad time to buy increased by three percentage points, to 29%. The number of those surveyed who think it’s a bad time to sell also increased by two percentage points to 85%.

“Consumer attitudes toward buying a home are more negative since last quarter,” said Doug Duncan, Fannie’s chief economist. The survey “shows that Americans’ declining optimism about housing and their personal finances is reinforcing increasingly realistic attitudes toward owning and renting.”

The poll also found that fewer Americans expect home prices to rise during the next year, and fewer also expect interest rates to go up. Around 57% of those surveyed think it would be hard to get a mortgage today, up from 54% in June, with the biggest shift in attitudes coming from those who currently have a mortgage.

The survey of telephone interviews with 3,417 households was conducted by Penn Schoen Berland throughout July, August and September. The full results are available in pdf format on Fannie Mae’s website.